Technological progress has been made with the latest color photographic materials and processing methods with a view to improving picture quality and to simplifying and speeding up processing as in the case of mini-laboratories.
In connection with the improvement of picture quality, the importance of the so-called DIR couplers as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,227,554, 3,701,783, 3,615,506, and 3,617,291, etc., for improving sharpness is well known. Thus a high degree of sharpness is obtained when DIR couplers containing timing groups as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 145,135/79 (the term "OPI" refers to an "unexamined Japanese patent application which has been opened for public inspection" are used, but there are problems with the stability, etc., of these compounds and they cannot be said to be ideal.
Furthermore the timing type DIR couplers disclosed in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) Nos. 114,946/81 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,409,323), 98,728/83, 209,738/83, 209,739/83 and 209,740/83 are better with respect to the weakness mentioned above, but when they are used the de-silvering operation during processing is slow and it is clear that sufficient time must be allowed for de-silvering especially in the case of an oxidation process for reduced silver using a bleach.
On the other hand the use of bleach acceleration agent releasing type couplers in silver halide color photographic materials has been disclosed in Research Disclosure, 1973, Item No. 11449 and in Japanese Patent Application (OPI) No. 201,247/86 (corresponding to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 707,115).
The bleach accelerating agents which are formed by the eliminated groups of these bleach accelerating agent releasing type couplers have some effect under conditions where the developer bath has not yet been used, but there is some deterioration of the bleach accelerating effect under normal running conditions where developer, etc., is carried over into the bleach bath or bleach-fix bath.
Hence the development of a novel method which enables the de-silvering process time to be shortened even under normal running conditions when processing photosensitive materials of which the sharpness has been improved using DIR couplers is clearly desirable.